"Great" moments in Rock and Roll Hall of Fame History: 1989

Fried chicken. Grotto pizza. A pound of crispy bacon. Turkey Hill peanut butter ripple ice cream. Scrapple. Fried cheese curds. That chicken you get at Indian food places that comes in the orange sauce.

Scrapple tastes gooooood. Pork chop tastes goooood.

All of these things are awesome. All of these things at the same time still could be awesome. But it'd also be really confusing, almost impossible to digest, and probably in the end it might not be so, well, satisfying. You'll probably vomit at least once that night. You'll definitely shit yourself silly the next day.

What happened on Jan. 18, 1989, is similar to the very same feast described above. At the end of a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ceremony that saw The Rolling Stones, The Temptations, Otis Redding, Stevie Wonder and Dion (not a bad class) go in, as well as cockface Phil Spector, who proved once again why he's as much of a cockface as he is a genius producer by inviting both Ike AND Tina Turner to induct him in the Hall. Interestingly enough, Ike is the one who pussed out, saying he was uncomfortable being around her.

At the end of what was probably a quite entertaining event to attend, all of the groups and an absolutely amazing assemblage of guests got on stage for a big jamfest performance of "Satisfaction."

Sure why the f*ck not, get out the cowbell.

Besides the inductees you had Dylan, Springsteen, George Harrison, a-hole Mike Love, a very uncomfortable looking John Fogerty (but when is John Fogerty ever comfortable looking?), possibly a coked out Billy Joel on the keys (it was possibly him, but whoever it was definitely was coked out); and then a super solid B team that included Mick Jones of Foreigner, Jeff Lynne, Arlo Guthrie, maybe Todd Rundgren and a few of the other Beach Boy dweebs.

There were so many f*ckers up there I'm not sure if any of the other Stones were up there besides Jagger.

The dizzying roster and the decent performance makes this a pretty incredible Rock Hall moment, but we're teetering on vomit, we're teetering on overindulgence and a sense that this might be too much, and then two more things take it to Over The Top Ville.

One is the presence of Paul Shaffer. But it's not just that he's there. It's that he used a Keytar to get himself front and center, whoring his way to the center of the action, like some dude nudging his way into the Last Supper scene so he could make the painting. F*ck you, Paul Shaffer.

This I get. The other thing, not so much.

Then there's what happens at 2:40. Bruce and Mick, sharing the mic like it was a metal schlong with a wire. When Bruce and Little Steven do this, it's cool. It's a bro thing. I get it. But here there's 400 mics sitting around, and no one's using them, and Bruce doesn't even have a guitar (another puzzling aspect), and there's no reason for them to get so close that their teeth are touching.

I dunno. The more I write about this the more I'm thinking this really is "great."

Kickin' Em Out: 1989

All of these "early influence" inductees really piss me off. Why does the Hall only recognize "early influences" but not future influences? I'm assuming "early influences" means there were no charts so there were no hits so they were never commercially recognized but had a huge impact on future artists. Fine. But what about bands later on that could never have commercial success because they could never make a Billboard chart, but their "influence" had a massive impact on what happened later. The list is endless so there's no point even getting started.

So who's going? The Ink Spots and their vocal harmonies or The Soul Stirrers and their gospel soul? Does it matter? I say no.

So we'll flip a coin and boot The Ink Spots because their name is dumber. And since we have to have a big name heave-ho, we're taking out Phil Spector. Yes, he produced legendary girl group records, and yes he was behind the boards for seminal solo works by John Lennon and George Harrison.

But Mr. Wall of Sound also royally effed up the last Beatles album and The Ramones' "End of the Century," which you could argue led to that band's demise.

Oh yeah, and he MURDERED SOMEONE.

Dion
The Ink Spots
Otis Reading
The Rolling Stones
Bessie Smith
The Soul Stirrers
Phil Spector
The Temptations
Stevie Wonder